1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a dubbing apparatus for dubbing any audio data from a mass storage medium installed at an information center or in the dubbing apparatus onto a recording medium and, more particularly, to a dubbing apparatus having a printing module for printing information associated with audio data to be dubbed on a recording medium.
2. Description of Related Art
A magneto-optical disc called a Mini Disc (trademark) is known which is a recording/reproducing enabled disc recording medium having a diameter of about 64 mm and housed in a cartridge.
This magneto-optical disc can record about 74 minutes of audio data in stereo by use of ATRAC (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding) as audio compressing.
Since the magneto-optical disc is small in size and therefore convenient in transportation, it is easy for outdoor use. Also, unlike an ordinary audio disc called a Compact Disc (trademark), this magneto-optical disc allows recording, thereby duplicating audio data.
An audio server system is possible in which, in order to record audio data compressed at a compression ratio of about 5 to 1 onto a magneto-optical disc, the compressed audio data is stored without change in a server, thereby making it possible to down load the compressed audio data to an optical disc fitted to a client computer without use of a decoder and an encoder.
In such an audio server system, the compressed data is recording without decompressing, so that the recording time required by this audio server system is shorter than other audio server system in which compressed audio data is decompressed before compressing again.
In the above-mentioned audio server system, a magneto-optical disc brought by the user is loaded in this audio server system. The user selects desired one or more pieces of music from among those recorded in the server as audio data and dubs the selection onto the magneto-optical disc, thereby realizing a new form of music sale which is different from a package medium such as a CD (Compact Disc).
Generally, the package medium such as a CD is sold with an added value including a lyrics card, liner notes by critic, a cover photograph, and a producer comment, in addition to music content.
However, a system in which audio data is distributed from the above-mentioned server to a client only records music content onto a recording medium without the above-mentioned added value. Therefore, such an audio server system has a drawback in satisfying users in content provision, as compared with ordinary package media.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a dubbing system capable of providing added value information equal or superior to that of the ordinary package media.
In carrying out the invention and according to one aspect thereof, there is provided an audio dubbing system for dubbing a desired audio program selected from a memory storing one or more compressed audio programs onto a recording medium, comprising a recording means for recording an audio program supplied from the memory onto the recording medium; a receiving means for receiving associated information about the supplied audio program; and a printing means for printing the associated information received by the receiving means.